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Barclays Shares Tumble

Bank's fines for falsifying Libor spark speculation of lawsuits.

Barclays Plc, Britain’s second- largest bank by assets, slid the most in three years after its record fines yesterday for falsifying London interbank offered rate submissions sparked speculation lawsuits will follow.

The shares fell as much as 18 percent as U.K. lawmakers called on Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond to resign. Barclays stock was down 28.7 pence to 167.4 pence at 12:55 p.m. in London. It was the biggest decline since March 2009.

The London-based bank was fined 290 million pounds ($451 million) yesterday by the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and U.S. Department of Justice. The settlements with are the first in an international investigation into whether banks tried to manipulate Libor.

Matthew Oakeshott, a member of the Liberal Democrat party who sits in Parliament’s upper House of Lords, said Diamond should resign. U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said today Barclays has questions to answer about the Libor probes.

“We expect that the cost of lawsuits related to Libor manipulation will dwarf the fines imposed on Barclays,” said Sandy Chen, a banks analyst at Cenkos Securities Plc in London, who is “penciling in multi-year provisions that could run into the billions.”

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Citigroup Inc., UBS AG, ICAP Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Deutsche Bank AG are among the other firms being probed as regulators worldwide investigate how Libor is set.

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